Your COLA: "You were lied to, and now are being robbed"

How Significant Is Losing Your COLA?

Dean Dennis, Bob Buerkle, Mary Ronan

Many retirees assume that having their Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) reduced and then frozen, amounts to losing only a thousand plus dollars a year. Many don't take the time to calculate just how much they are losing. By May 2022, the earliest that STRS will consider restoring your COLA, you will have lost a lot of money. For an idea, see the chart below.

If you retired prior to July 2012, STRS promised you a simple 3% COLA. STRS has reneged. First, they froze your COLA for a year. Next, your COLA was reduced from 3% to 2% for three years. Now your COLA is frozen for another 5 years. In short, you will be losing 8 years of a promised 3% COLA. The actions of STRS, will be reviewed in 2022, by STRS. There's no guarantee you will ever live to see another Cost of Living Adjustment again. You were lied to, and now are being robbed. A COLA was built into your pension formula and at every step you were told you would receive a COLA. Below is an example of a retiree with a $50,000 pension who should be receiving a simple 3% COLA; three percent of $50,000 is $1,500.

Click image to enlarge